


It’s not the same moon

by TheHoardingPuffin



Series: Whatever you’ve promised, whatever you've done [2]
Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alexandria Safe-Zone (Walking Dead), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Beth Greene Lives, Beth Greene-centric, Enid and Beth bonding, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-07
Updated: 2020-12-07
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:01:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27940439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheHoardingPuffin/pseuds/TheHoardingPuffin
Summary: Beth was unsure if coming to Alexandria had been a good idea.
Relationships: Beth Greene & Enid
Series: Whatever you’ve promised, whatever you've done [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2046026
Comments: 13
Kudos: 10





	It’s not the same moon

**Author's Note:**

> Hello people!  
> This Oneshot is part of the Alternate Universe that my main TWD Fanfiction "Ghost Story" takes place in. You don't nessicarily have to read that one, but it might help clear the story up a bit.   
> I considered including her arrival at Alexandria in the main fanfic, but it felt wrong to just have her talk about it. She deserves a more detailed exploration of ALL THAT, told through her eyes, not through Carl's, who is the main focus of Ghost Story after all. I really hope some of you enjoy this. As always, I thrive on comments and critique.   
> Love, Lotta

The air smelled of wet dirt and decay and iron, the way it always did after a heavy rainfall. Beth had always liked that smell, for some reason. Rain meant water, water meant life. But as nice and life-giving rain was, it had still ruined her left shoe and now it made an annoying quacking noise with every step, and that, Beth did not like.

Not that a ruined shoe was her worst issue at the moment.

She carefully moved Judith from her right hip to the left and pressed a small kiss to her forehead when the baby girl made an annoyed whining sound.

They kept walking. And walking. Towards that mysterious place Aaron and Eric claimed to have. A safe place. Beth didn’t know yet if she believed him. She wanted to, of course, but there was little reason to. Hope and the longing for a safe home weren’t good reasons.

She wondered if any of them actually believed the two young men.

She knew that Rick was highly sceptical, obviously. He had been ready to kill Aaron, sensing danger from the situation. Daryl was sceptical at least, too, that much she knew for sure. She could read Daryl the best out of the group, except for her sister and Judith and maybe Glenn.

Glenn wanted to believe. He desperately wanted to believe.

Maggie kept her guard up, her jaw tense, and that meant there was a fight seething inside her mind, voice of reason against hope for something good.

Sasha, Abraham and Rosita seemed hopeful. Eugene seemed indifferent, trotting alongside them like a loyal puppy. Father Gabriel believed Aaron without a doubt. Stupidly. Beth could tell from his friendly chatter with Aaron and Eric, and the way he held himself. He didn’t seem like he had arrived in the real world yet, like he still believed things could turn for the better.

This was _the better_ now. They were alive, they were together. It didn’t get better anymore these days.

Michonne was as tense and guarded and sceptical as Daryl and Rick, which was no surprise at all. She was walking a bit behind the two of them, and her eyes kept darting over to Eric and Aaron, as if she expected them to lash out and kill them. She probably did.

Beth didn’t think either of the two men were a real threat to them. Eric was injured, Aaron seemed preoccupied holding him as they walked, and both seemed strangely naïve and soft for this world. Beth was unsure whether to pity them or be extra wary. Soft people didn’t make it anymore if they didn’t harden.

She was the best example.

“Is it okay if I film our conversation?”, the leader of the place – Deanna – repeated her question. It took Beth a moment to realize she was, indeed, being serious. They had filming equipment in this place. She gave a curt nod and sat down in the armchair across from Deanna’s sofa.

The first questions were easy enough. “What’s your name?” – “Have you been outside for the whole time?” – “Have you been with your group the whole time?” – “Did you know each other before?”

She told Deanna about her family’s farm, about the Walkers in the barn her Dad had believed he could cure – it seemed so ridiculous to her now – about them fleeing. About the prison. The illness. The Governor. She didn’t let a detail out even though some of the things hurt to say out loud.

“You need to understand”, she said, looking at Deanna. “This world is nothing like it used to be. It might seem like it’s still the same when you’re in here all the time but it really isn’t.”  
“I hadn’t thought so.”  
“Maybe not. But that doesn’t mean you understand the extent of it.”

Deanna nodded. “I have a feeling this has to do with the injuries you have.”

The half-healed stitched cuts on her face. Her bandaged wrist.

“Not with my injuries. With the people.” She chewed on her lip. “Deanna, our group had a ritual. At the prison. Whenever someone new would be considered to join, we asked three questions.”

“I am listening.”  
“Number one: _How many Walkers have you killed?_ ” Beth looked at her hands. “Most people said something like I don’t know or I lost count.”  
“Not you?”

“No. I didn’t have to kill many of them. I didn’t leave the prison until the very end.” She took a deep breath. “I killed thirty-two Walkers. I kept count.”  
She kept count of many things nowadays. Walkers. People. Places. People they lost. Days.

“What were the other questions?”, Deanna asked.

“Number two was _How many people have you killed?_ ”

She looked the older woman in the eye, searched for a reaction, for fear or surprise or shock. She didn’t find it.

“How many?”, Deanna asked, instead.

Beth considered lying. Faces flashed through her mind. The other doctor that Edwards had made her kill by giving him the wrong medication. Gorman. Dawn.

“Three total.”

Deanna nodded. “What was the third of your questions?”

“ _Why?_ ”

“Why?”, Deanna repeated. Not as in _why was it that question?_ As in _why did you kill them_? She asked it the right way.

**“** One wasn’t my fault”, Beth said. “I was just an instrument. I still did it though.”

“And the others?”

“One did… he raped the women at the… the place I was.”

“And the third?”

“She tried to use me.”

Images, faces, flashed before her eyes.

“Sounds to me like none of those were your fault in the end.”

“The questions aren’t about fault. They are about honesty. And capability.” Beth sighed. “Also moral, I suppose.”

The older woman seemed to think about it for a moment.

“Do you think of yourself as a moral person, Beth?”  
“I don’t know anymore.” She looked down at her hands. At the cast around her wrist. “I don’t know if morals from the old world still hold up.”

“Some of them, maybe. Depends on the situation. The place.”

“Maybe.”

“I understand if you’re hesitant to trust”, Deanna told her, bluntly. “But if your group decides to live here, then I think it would be best you learned to trust us.”

“The last time I trusted someone new, I was almost killed.” She had meant for the words to sound sharp, angry, but they ended up sounding weak, exhausted. Tired.

“It’s not that I don’t trust the people”, she continued. “It’s that I don’t believe in this kind of community anymore. We had some. Saw some. Sooner or later, they are overrun. Walls can’t hold forever.”

“I think they can. Especially now that we might gain you survivors as assets to our community.”

Beth didn’t smile back. She leaned back in her seat. “We didn’t say we’re staying, yet.”

They stayed.

The Alexandrians had even given them houses. Two. They were next to each other and gigantic. There was running water, electricity. TVs. Books. Furniture that was intact. Everything was clean and entirely surreal.

“They’re just giving them away.” Beth ran a fingertip along the windowsill, peering outside. “That’s so weird.”  
“It is.” Maggie took a deep sigh. “They seem nice, don’t they?”

Beth thought of Edwards. He had seemed nice, too, at first. “Maybe too nice.”

Maggie squeezed her hand, the one that wasn’t encased in the cast. “We’ll be fine.”

“I know that.”

Maggie gave her a small smile and then left the room, probably to either find Glenn or to go explore. Beth checked in with Carol, who was taking care of Judith, and when she was sure she wasn’t strictly needed by anyone, she went out to explore.

She remembered neighbourhoods like this one. She hadn’t liked them much then – too much of a country girl – and she didn’t like this one now. Every house looked the same, apart from different colours of doors. There were flowers in pots on some porches, but no real gardens, just lawns in front of them. The road circled all around the place in a sort of four-leaf-clover-shape. There was an artificial lake in the middle.

Everything looked so clean and nice.

“Hey, you!”

A boy, maybe two years younger than her, had appeared in front of her without her noticing.

“Hi.”

“Did I scare you?”

“No.”

The boy gave her a small grin. “Sorry if I did.”

“You didn’t.” Beth pursed her lips. “You live here, then?”

“Well, yeah. You’re one of the outsiders?”

“Obviously, otherwise you’d know me.”

“Fair.” The boy reached out, offered his hand. “I’m Ron. Ron Anderson.”

“Beth Greene.” She shook his hand.

Ron’s grin widened. “I, uh, live right over there.”

Beth nodded and pointed over her shoulder. “I’m there.”

For some reason, the interaction felt awkward. She didn’t know how to talk to other teenagers anymore. It had been much easier to speak with Deanna.

“Do, do you wanna come by sometime?”, Ron offered. “I have a little brother, and there’s some more younger kids here, but also some our age. We hang out a lot.”  
She wanted to say No. That probably wasn’t smart – best not to raise negative attention. “Sure. Thanks.”

“Later?”

“Sure. Should I just come knocking, anytime?”  
“Yeah. Sounds good.” At this, the grin turned into a genuine bright smile. “See you then, Beth!”

“See you.”

She turned around and walked the other way. God, her people skills clearly were gone for good.

She walked once all around the place, looked at every house, gave bright (and fake) smiled to the people she walked past. Something about Alexandria made her skin crawl and made her wish for a gun. She barely even knew how to fire a gun. A far-range-rifle against Walkers, yes, but she didn’t much like handguns. But now she wished for one. Or for a knife.

Those, the Alexandrians hadn’t taken away. Hers was left at the house. She would get it later. Not as good as a gun, but better than nothing.

Two young boys were playing by the lake, and with their dark hair and flannels, they reminded her of Carl.

She shook her head to get rid of the thoughts of exactly how many ways Carl could have died since the prison attack. That wasn’t helpful. She didn’t have a lot of faith he was still around, but at least a little bit, and more doubt wouldn’t do her any good.

Best not to think about it at all.

She kept walking until she was back where she had started, by the Anderson house.

She walked up to the door and knocked.   
A young woman with blonde hair opened. “Hello?”  
“Hi, I’m Beth.” She put up a mask – a bright smile and a high tone of voice. “Uh, Ron invited me over. Is he here?”

“Oh. Oh yes, he’s upstairs.” The woman – Ron’s mother probably – let her in and showed her the way up the stairs and to one of the rooms.   
Beth knocked.

Ron opened. “Beth! Hi!”

“Hi.”

She entered the room. Apart from Ron, there was another guy, with dark hair and glasses that painfully reminded her of Patrick.

“Uh, this is Mikey”, Ron said. “And this is Beth.”  
Beth smiled and, after looking around, sat down on the bed.

“You’re with the new people, right?”, Mikey asked.

“Yeah.” Beth looked him up and down. “You’re not from the outside, are you?”

“Uh, no.” The boy blushed. “I’ve never been outside… at all.”

“Probably better that way.”

“Yeah”, Ron piped in. “With all the dead things around.”

Beth didn’t say that the living were much more dangerous than the Walkers. Instead, she pointed at the video game console plugged into the TV in the corner.

“Any good games?”

She didn’t even know what games were good or bad. She just didn’t want to talk about the real world outside. Not with them. They were – even though they were barely younger than her – kids. Kids that didn’t know anything. Even Carl, or Lizzie and Mika had been more mature than them.

Ron went on and on about the small collections of games, and Beth listened half-heartedly, nodding every now and then.

“Do you play?”, Mikey asked, and she shook her head no. “Never had the chance.”

The boys showed her how to use the controller and they played two rounds of a racing game with colourful cartoon characters. It actually was fun, sort of. She almost forgot about reality – and then, Ron asked: “What happened to your arm.”

That sobered her up.

“I broke it.”

“How?”

“I fell. Walkers.”  
“Who made that cast? Do you have a doctor or something.”

“We don’t.”

“Then who-“

Beth dropped the controller and got up. “I’ll go now.”

She hadn’t slept well. Her dreams had been filled by sterile hospital smell and dark, narrow hospital hallways and shiny silver hospital equipment, and by hands and tongues and snarls.

And now, she was outside the walls, her knife in hand, sneaking after a girl she didn’t know.

It felt more natural than anything else since they had arrived in Alexandria.

The leaves barely made a sound under the soles of her feet. There were birds up in the trees, and the air smelled of dirt and nature and –

“I know you’re following me.”

Beth froze on the spot. Her eyes darted around, trying to pinpoint where the other girl’s voice had come from.

“I didn’t try to hide from you.”

“Good.”

“Was I that loud?” Beth slowly turned around herself and spotted a purple sliver behind a thick tree.

“Not really.”

Yup, definitely behind that tree. Beth slowly crept closer.

“You just stepped on a dry branch a few minutes ago.”  
“Dang it.” She said it casually, without any level of real disappointment, and quickly stepped behind the tree. “Gotcha!”

The girl jumped, but then laughed about herself.

“Hello.”

Beth grinned. “Hi.”

The other girl shoved her hands into her pockets. “You’re with that new group, right? Ron’s talked about you.”

“He didn’t say anything about you.” Beth held out her hand. “I’m Beth.”  
“Enid.”

The two girls kept on walking, knives at the ready just in case, side by side. Enid, it turned out, was from the outside as well, and shared Beth’s emotions and thoughts about Alexandria, its safety and its chance of staying standing.

“It’s frustrating”, Enid said, and played with a loose thread at the bottom of her purple sweater. “They don’t understand how dangerous it is, staying locked up in there all the time.”

“And then they scold you for going outside because it’s dangerous out here?”

It was just a guess, but Enid nodded. “Yeah.”  
“Stupid, some of them, aren’t they?”

“Very.” Enid giggled. “It’s good there’s some people with sense here, finally.”

“Thank you.” Beth quickly reached out and gently squeezed her hand, once. “I am glad there’s someone around to talk to. No offense to Ron, but he’s…”  
“He’s a bit dull?”

“Yeah.”

“Fair enough.” Enid shrugged. “He’s not the brightest.”  
Beth grinned at that – and froze when she heard some snapping branches. She held up a hand, and Enid stopped next to her. They waited, holding their breath, listening – and then they saw it. A Walker. Stumbling towards them.

Enid grinned and slowly reached into her pocket, pulling out a small egg timer. She turned the small pointer, and threw it in the other direction. It landed in the bushes, a few metres behind the snarling dead creature.

Beth looked from the Walker to Enid, then back, wondering what was going on, and then the timer went off. Shrill, metallic ringing filled the air, and the creature turned around, limping towards the sound instead.

Enid grabbed Beth by the hand and started running, pulling her with her. While they were running, laughter bubbled up from Beth’s stomach, and she let it out.

She had been unsure if coming to Alexandria had been a good idea, but things seemed just a little bit brighter now.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is taken from a song of the musical "The Last Ship" - "It's not the same moon in the sky, and these are different stars."


End file.
